pretty much -- must users won't bother to learn search operators for same reason they didn't learn LaTeX and will resist learning markdown. sure it works and lot of work to recall something hard to master only use every so often.
it's the layperson's version of recalling regex if only need it every few weeks -- lots of cognitive load for minimal return, easier to ask friends or reddit.
yes, search operators seem intuitive to perhaps the average HN reader or SO coder, etc. That's a small set of people compared to 7B+ people attempting to recall oh, right ~term adds synonyms -- easy for most people here, mostly useless or not worth remembering for most of the world.
Most users weren't learning search operators before Google came along either.
Google's goal is to make them ultimately irrelevant and just give you what you're looking for, meeting the user halfway on the search query. That may not be possible, but it's the right mindset to have for solving the problem... Making the human talk like a computer is a UI failure.
it's the layperson's version of recalling regex if only need it every few weeks -- lots of cognitive load for minimal return, easier to ask friends or reddit.
yes, search operators seem intuitive to perhaps the average HN reader or SO coder, etc. That's a small set of people compared to 7B+ people attempting to recall oh, right ~term adds synonyms -- easy for most people here, mostly useless or not worth remembering for most of the world.